sorry you didn't get a response for four days—the n00b s0z subforum doesn't show up on the front page, so people don't see it as much. anyway, here's my cc:
- mix & sound design: chords and bassline are a bit hard to hear because they're so quiet in comparison with the lead and drums. the timbres themselves are good.
- structure: a contrasting B section would be nice.
- melody: it's fairly busy and doesn't really go anywhere. i would suggest using rests and maybe
ornaments. one way to write melodies is to sing or hum over your track, then transcribe what you sing—this can result in more "natural"-sounding melodies than you'd get by writing directly into your tracker or piano roll.
- harmony: you've done a good job of staying in-key and in-scale with your chords and melody. this is not strictly a good thing, however, and you could change things up by using borrowed chords that are non-
diatonic (in other words, chromatic). when you do use chromatic harmony, you usually still want to make sure that your melody and chords "agree" with one another; ex. if you're nominally in A♭ major and are borrowing a C major chord from the parallel minor mode, you'll want to use the E from the C major chord instead of the E♭ from the A♭ major scale. of course, you can also change keys altogether.
- drums: the drums are very static. new composers neglect this all the time, but variation in the drums is a really good way to emphasize the structure of the track. you can place fills near the end of a phrase, and you can change things up when the song enters a new section by altering the rhythm, or by altering which drums/cymbals you use—changing from a hi-hat to a ride cymbal or vice versa is a common variation.
if you're interested in writing more music and refining your skills, you should try entering some major compos and/or ohcs! they're a great way to practice and get feedback on your music.
